Complex Problem Model

It has been quite an experience trying to wrap my head around this complex model project. After I finally chose my topic, I began to brainstorm how I would model my problem: Students not involved in extra-curricular activities don’t perform as well at school. I decided to use a concept map to begin to brainstorm my ideas. The complex problem that we modeled in class together about War helped me to understand how to start to model a concept. Through building upon concept maps or flowcharts, it is easier to make progress and develop a working model.

When creating my concept map, I focused on the effects that may result from not participating in extracurricular activities.



Although I came up with a lot of ideas, I still needed to figure out how these concepts all related to one another. I decided to organize my concept map into four main areas that show the effects of students not participating in extracurricular activities:
1. Real-world experiences
2. Opportunities for responsibility (individual and group)
3. Interests, talents, and abilities
4. Levels of social, emotional, and healthy behavior



After I organized the concept map, I planned to create a flow chart to show the effects of not participating in extracurricular activities and the steps that could be taken to try to solve this problem.



After beginning my flow chart, I realized I had no idea how I would continue with this model. I couldn’t wrap my head around it and felt completely lost. I also didn’t think I had enough research or data to support the information that I was trying to display in the flow chart. I decided to scrap the flow chart. I needed better data!

To truly model this problem, I decided that I needed to compare the effect of extracurricular activities on student performance/success for different Chicago Public Schools. After searching for quality data, I found the CPS website to be very helpful. This website listed statistics for each of its schools. The factors that I included in this comparison were school type, # of students, ethnicity, socio-economic status, average days absent, average ACT, meets or exceeds state standards, participation in extracurricular activities, and enrollment in college. I used Excel to organize and compare this data.









I also created separate tables to compare extracurricular participation with several different factors. Some of the trends I found were:
1. Schools with white students as the predominant ethnicity had the highest extracurricular participation (92%).
2. Students who are involved in extracurricular activities tend to have fewer absences.
3. Students who are involved in extracurricular activities tend to have higher ACT scores.
4. There seems to be a correlation between more student absences and a lower numbers of students meeting or exceeding state standards.
5. There is a correlation between high extracurricular participation of students coming from schools with fewer low income students.
6. Charter/Selective schools have higher levels of student participation in extracurricular activities.

This model isn’t complete. There are still some factors that I would like to compare. I would like to explore the relationship between the causes of low extracurricular participation and the effects that not participating in extracurricular activities has on students. I would also like to explore the possible solutions for attempting to solve this problem. I am not sure if this problem can be solved, but I think I have created a good foundation in attempting to identify and explore this complex problem.

List below are some of the sources I used:
http://www.answers.com/topic/extracurricular-activity-3
http://www.academicleadership.org/student_research
http://www.hcausa.com/media/Case-for-Extracurricular-Facilities.pdf
http://socialworktoday.com/ezine
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs95/web/95741.asp
http://www.cps.edu/Schools/Find_a_school/Pages/Findaschool.aspx
http://mywebspiration.com